So Phong and I spent the week in Southern Sweden visiting his family and checking out Hälsingborg and Mälmo. We took the train from his hometown over to Hälsingborg which was a lot of fun. It turns out that I rather like trains.

Though the fifteen hours of train riding home was a bit much... possibly due to being sleepy though.

My camera promptly died on the fourth day which is why there is sadly no documentation of that epic return journey.

Of course we visited cafes for pastries since we do that just about everywhere we go. We actually had a discussion in another cafe about possible doing a road trip through Sweden to visit cafes and record the yummy sugary things we find. 

This was in Hälsingborg and I thought it was really neat.

At the top of those first set of stairs is a fountain... but the water smells kind of like old fishtank water. When I looked closer I realized that it was because people had dumped trash in there. As much as I already dislike litering, somehow litering in a fountain seems even more reprehensible. Who does that? Fountains are meant for coins and wishes. What kind of wish can you expect to get granted off of plastic bags and beer bottles?

Alright. I took a deep breath and am ready to continue past the fountain tragedy.

This was the view from the top.

See that stretch of blue out there past the ocean on the horizon. That's Denmark. You could practically throw rocks at it! But of course, even if you could, you shouldn't.

The whole trip was really fun and I can't wait to go again next summer. We're planning to visit Denmark that time and I'll be sure to find a charger for my camera by then.

So I'm currently in southern Sweden and having a fabulous time! We flew down. It took two planes and had us hanging out in Arlanda (Stockholm airport) for four hours. The hanging out part wasn't bad. It's much more fun with another person, especially Phong! He bought me icecream and pizza lunch!

The actual flights kind of sucked, though it was absolutely not SAS's fault. I get these wierd but awful headaches on descent. Only in the left side of my forehead and cheek though. It almost felt electric in my eyebrow and even my jaw ached.

It was pretty horrible but it fades after landing. It really is a shame that there are so many places I want to go that involve flying... otherwise I would turn to trains. I need to remember to find out what's up with the descent headaches and if there's anything I can do so as not to have them in the future.

Anywho- I'm now in Phong's hometown having a wonderful time and meeting his amazing family! Everyone is so nice and I'm so happy to get to be a part of their family! I'll try to post again soon- I'm crazy tired and Phong is giving me the "why are you still typing, I thought we were sleeping" look.

So Phong and I were out for a walk the other evening and when we came home there was a hedgehog in the yard! A hedgehog! In case you're wondering what all the hullabaloo is about, I've only ever seen real hedgehogs in Sweden. (Not counting my friend's tiny angry pet hedgehog.) Every summer I try to keep an eye out for them but it seems every time we see one, I don't have a camera on me! Even this time, I was without a camera. When the hedgehog left the yard to venture into the parking lot and check out my brother-in-law's beamer, Phong and I continued on our way into the building.

When we got upstairs I ran to the kitchen window and low and behold, he had wondering into the other side of our yard! I tried taking a picture from the window, but it was too far away to get a good picture. I considered going down and getting closer but I decided a while back (in previous hedgehog thoughts) that I shouldn't get too close or do anything that might influence their directional choices. It's already so precarious outside what with all the pavement, cars, cats, and drunk teens... I couldn't bare the idea of negatively effecting a hedgehogs lifepath.

Summer has arrived! And with it came the near endless daylight hours that I do so adore.

Last summer we went on a bunch of outdoor adventures around midnight since it's so light out and there's no one around and this year we decided to continue that grand tradition! This was our first outing of the year. We went to a beach that I now cannot remember the name of (I was told it meant 'magpie' in Swedish). It took a bit of a while to drive there and the road was curvy and Phu drove fast so I ended up having flashbacks of my youthful carsick tendencies but we arrived and I was absorbed by other youthful tendencies- such as frolicking in the sand and stomping in mud.

 

 

 

It wasn't quite midnight but this was the skyline. Linn informed me that the sun was setting at 10.45ish these days and rising around 2 in the morning. I think it was about 11.30 when I took this.

 

My beloved Phong. He did quite a bit of rock jumping. At first I tried to caution him against it with talk of potential hypothermia and when that failed I attempted to get pictures of his jumping... but my camera only caught blurs. That's how fast he was!